It’s good news coming out of Microsoft: Windows 7 and Windows Vista can finally show RAW files in Windows Explorer and Photo Gallery. You just have to download and install their new Microsoft Camera Codec Pack for Windows 7 and Vista to add support to more than 120 DSLR cameras in Photo Gallery, as well as in Windows Explorer.

You can also edit your raw photos in Photo Gallery, which makes a copy of the original raw file and converts it to JPEG or HD Photo; the latter is said to be superior in that it preserves all the original raw quality.

With the codec in place, Windows now supports viewing and editing a wide range of photo file formats including raw, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and more.